It was as if the eyes - and the cameras - of everyone gathered had been set on auto-focus mode.

India had scheduled an elective coaching session on a sultry Colombo morning. It was the eve of their final league sport towards Bangladesh, who had been already knocked out of the lads's Asia Cup. The eyes had been fastened on the crew bus because the teaching workers and gamers alighted to move into the nets facility on the R Premadasa Stadium.

Iyer was maybe the busiest of the 5 gamers that turned up for the elective coaching. He underwent stretching, notably his again, with the coach Rajnikanth. After about fifteen minutes of jogging, he did brief sprints and a stretch-walk, earlier than he proceeded to the third nets, the farthest from the facet the media had been at.

After a brief stint of underarm throwdowns, he proceeded to face fast-bowling throwdowns in addition to a few web bowlers. Iyer confirmed no seen indicators of discomfort - be it whereas getting ahead whereas lacing the off drive or whereas transferring his weight again to tug and heave the size and back-of-length deliveries. A batting stint - throughout two nets - that began round 10:55am solely ended when batting coach Vikram Rathour known as time on coaching at round 11:40am.

A couple of crisp straight drives had the throwdown guys in addition to the online bowlers close to the sightscreen ducking for canopy. A "well done, Shreyas!" by Rathour adopted by gradual claps capped off a productive morning for Iyer. Whether he'll play towards Bangladesh - or within the last on Sunday - is anyone's guess. But that Iyer confirmed his readiness after one other scare would crew the please administration no ends.

While Iyer batted on the far nets, Ravindra Jadeja and Thakur batted in pairs, rotating strike after six balls apiece within the first web. Tilak and birthday boy Suryakumar Yadav did the identical within the center nets. Even whereas Rathour was feeding balls to Iyer, he had an eye fixed on Tilak, usually throwing in a loud "shot, Tilak!" or "badhiya (excellent), Tilak" cheer in direction of him.

After about half an hour of nets, Tilak proceeded to bowl his offspin to Jadeja within the first web. Throughout the stint he mentioned his grip, the areas to bowl, and flight with Mhambrey, who had a eager eye on proceedings. Mhambrey coached the India Under-19 crew in 2020 in South Africa, of which Tilak was a component.

"We have been working with Tilak since the Under-19 days," Mhambrey stated after coaching. "I felt that when we had gone to South Africa for Under-19 (World Cup), he had a bowling skill that we could definitely use, and so we have been working on that consistently.

"We want to see if he performs and manages to get an opportunity to bowl even one over, we'll begin from there. If we are able to take a look at that and acquire confidence from his bowling, the captain may have an choice.

"In case we need an extra spinner given the circumstances - based on conditions or opposition batters - especially if there are left-handers and you need an offspinner, we need an option to go to. So, we are working with him on his bowling."

While Mhambrey conceded that the crew mixture for the Bangladesh sport is but to be determined, he stated there's a probability that India might check out a couple of choices given they've sealed their spot for the ultimate and there's a house World Cup within the offing.

Whatever Tilak, Jadeja, Shardul or Suryakumar did, although, turned to be a mere footnote given Iyer was the clear point of interest on a sizzling and dry morning.

S Sudarshanan is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo